Todd's Tropical Fish

Let's start with 3 facts:\r 1. Behind the counter, a sign reads ""Tanks be medicated"".\r 2. In my experience to Todd's, roughly 1/3 of tanks will have dead livestocks.\r 3. After using Todd's RO for approximately 30 days of water top-offs, 2 of my fish (including a stunning Coral Beauty) died this morning following a 5 gallon (out of 65 total) saltwater change out.\r 3a. All fish have inhabited this tank for 6+ months, eat, swim, and interact without signs or symptoms of disease, fungal infection, or other tank born illness. \r 3b. The pH of this tank was 8.1 (slightly low, but not threatening) After finding the dead fish, a sample of water was taken to Keys' Island (highly recommend!) where the pH was revealed to be 7.8.\r 3c. The ammonia, nitrate, and nitrate levels all tested at approximately 0ppm prior to use of saltwater purchased at Todd's. Testing afterwards revealed a nitrate level of 50ppm.\r 3d. All micro nutrient, calcium, and alkalinity levels tested within normal., healthy ranges as well.\r 3e. Salinity maintained at a stable level of 1.024\r \r This leads me to my hypothesis: Todd's is using inferior water filtration methods, chemically synthesizing R/O, or if they are using a proper system-- have not maintained the filtration system properly, leading to contamination. \r \r One fish's sudden death I can understand. Two? Two immediately following a water change out from Todd's? That I cannot abide. \r \r Todd's response to this pathetic-- to say the least. No, as a matter of fact, fish should not be medicated regardless of whether a disease is suspected. (This lowers their natural immune system.) And yes, as a seller of living creatures pulled pulled from a threatened ecosystem, you should be held accountable.\r \r Putting off the incident as, ""Well-- it couldn't have been us-- otherwise the whole tank would have died!"" is not ever an acceptable answer. Yes, my whole tank may have very well died if I hadn't taken immediate action, but that doesn't mitigate their accountability in the matter.\r \r In case you haven't gathered so far, I love my tank. My water is tested weekly. Change-outs are regularly preformed. It's an 18 month old fixture brimming with corals, fish, and the tank is so healthy that the sugar starfish who came in on a piece of liverock have flourished.\r \r I pride myself in care of beautiful sea creatures because hey--- they may not be around that much longer. That being said, I will not be returning to Todd's Tropical Fish to purchase contaminated water or sick livestock: their apparent specialities. \r \r Recommendation: DO NOT BUY LIVESTOCK, SALTWATER, or R/O FROM TODD'S. TROPICAL FISH. more

This is the second time I have experienced horrible customer service with Todd's Tropcial Fish. My husband really likes this store for his saltwater aquarium, so each year for Christmas I look into a gift certificate. However, the store closes at 6:00 pm, and I work in Breckenridge (90 minutes from the store) until 5:00 pm. So I asked them to do a gift certificate over the phone. Last year they said they absolutely wouldn't do a Gift certificate over the phone. This year she said she would but refused to mail or fax anything saying I bought a gift certificate. I even offered to pay extra money for the mailing. Not only was she not willing to provide good customer service, she HUNG UP ON ME. I wasn't rude, didn't yell at her, just asked questions. Her name is Jeanette, and she is the manager. Not worth giving them my business after that kind of treatment. Jeanette should be taken out of customer service! more

DON'T BUY FISH FROM TODD'S - THEY HAVE ICH AND ARE NOT QUARANTINED BEFORE SELLING! We have a 55 gallon tank that we've had the same healthy fish for 8+ years, (4 rummy nosed tetras, 4 turquoise rainbows, 2 yoyo loaches and some chinese algae eaters). We previously kept Discus in the tank (which is soft water, 6.0ph), but they kept breeding and were so aggressive we decided not to keep them. We keep our planted aquarium clean and healthy. We decided it was time to add some new fish -- so we went to Todd's Tropical Fish. We purchased a school of 8 additional Rummy Nosed Tetras (we had 4 already), 8 Cardinal Tetras, 2 bristlenose plecos and 2 pearl gouramis. We brought them home, acclimated the fish for an hour (adding a little bit of aquarium water at a time to the bags over this period), then released. The fish seemed ok that evening, but when we woke up the next day, half of the Cardinals had died (and disappeared, we have a planted tank, so the bodies must have been hidden or eaten by the other tankmates after they died). The next day, a few more of the cardinal tetras had died again (we did find one carcass), and then noticed that ALL of our fish had Ich white spots all over their bodies. The next day all of the Cardinal tetras were gone, and nearly all of the original and new Rummy Nosed tetras had also died (except for 2). We also lost a Rainbow - it was a really nightmarish experience losing so many fish and seeing them suffer. After we noticed the fish had ich, we called Todd's to see if they had suggestions - the guy basically acted like he didn't care, and said our tank likely had ich already -- WHICH IS A COMMON MYTH** -- as Ich does not survive dormant in aquariums! He also said that I stressed the fish by adding them to quickly to the tank (an hour acclimating is not too quickly). Then he asked about my water, which I keep soft, at 6.0ph (I use a water filter for adding water to keep the water soft as our tap water is very hard), so then he blamed my soft water as the problem. Basically, it was not his fault that he sold us fish with Ich, it was entirely our problem. He offered no resolution whatsoever except to ask me to bring in one of our sick fish and a water sample (which I asked how that would help, and he didn't have a response). For the next two weeks we struggled with daily water changes, and treating for ich (we originally tried an ich treatment, but the fish seemed very sickly when we were adding it, so after a few days we did a large water change and switched to the salt treatment of increasing the salt level over several days to 3 teaspoons per gallon). It took a couple weeks, but finally we were able to cure the ich with the salt treatment (and the fish seemed to like that a lot better than the Ich medication). I will never purchase fish from Todd's again. He lied and said our tank had ich, and then basically blamed our water quality and acclimation process on why we got ich. Any aquarium store that blames a 8 year old established tank for having ich that infected new fish (but was non-existent before) is a dishonest shop. Don't buy fish here!! **There is no ""dormant"" independent, long-term encysted life stage separate from a host fish for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. This is useful to know. You will often hear to the contrary. Dr. Peter Burgess, who took Ichthyophthirius multifiliis as his Ph.D. subject at Plymouth University, mentioned among Ich ""old wives' tales"" that ""It's present in all aquariums."" ""What utter rubbish"" noted Dr. Burgess (in the November 2001 Practical Fishkeeping). Brits don't mince words. This is sourced from the Skeptical Aquarist website. more